The Needle in the Haystack

If you’re a regular visitor to the Haystack, you’ve seen the previous reflection where the Teacher calls us “the salt of the earth,” intending we be like salt and season life with zestful flavor. Hidden in that Haystack is a needle—another use of salt. To find it, view all of Matthew 15:13: “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.” The needle? It’s a challenge hidden in a common 2,000-year-old Palestinian courtyard that contained an earthen oven similar to those seen today in the American Southwest. Jesus seasoned his teachings with examples of daily life, and the salt of that quotation refers to the kind used in earthen ovens. Scripture scholar Dr. John Pilch says that while wood was scarce in semi-desert Galilee there was an abundance of donkey and sheep dung. That dung, shaped into patties and sun-dried, became ideal fuel to be ignited when hunks of rock salt were placed on top of it as a catalyst. In time, the rock salt’s fire capacity lost its ability to enflame, and being worthless was thrown out on the road. There’s no shortage of manure today in our society! Hundreds of millions suffer unemployment, poor housing, lack of food and health care, while the wealthy few hide their money in tax havens. Allow the needle of the Palestinian salting of dung to pierce our aloof comfort of being mere spectators of the sorrows of the poor. Dr. Martin Luther King, when faced with the stinking dung of American racial discrimination, became a catalyst that set ablaze a social movement for radical racial and social change. You may feel too insignificant to make such change, but a spark—while only a small flash—can begin a blaze. Be such a small spark by donating to feed the hungry or serving in a food kitchen, and by voting for a candidate who supports the moral obligation of our government to care for our poor and less fortunate. There is no shortage of dung in the Church either! The recently deceased Cardinal Carlo Martini of Milan spoke of what many feel, “The Church is 200 years behind the times. Its rituals and ceremonial dress are pompous.” When you encounter the stench of manure in your local church, neighborhood or family, don’t hold your nose and ignore it. Become a pyromaniac catalyst who by flames of love and justice strives to bring some good out of the muck.

Season to Taste

A faithful church member is one who weekly attends church, regularly contributes money to it and obeys the church’s teachings. Jesus, however, has another definition of the faithful who follow him, calling them “the salt of the earth”! His definition has diverse meanings, and one could be that since the creation of cooking salt has worked its magic of enhancing food’s subtle favors. The salty followers of Nazareth’s Saline Savior aren’t known for their weekly attendance at church but for sprinkling salt wherever needed. “Season to taste,” say cooking recipes, while Jesus’ recipe is “Season as needed.” You can follow his recipe when you approach a store cashier whose face reflects someone being treated like a robot. Take a few moments, make eye to eye contact, and say a few kind words to the person as one human being to another. In doing so, you affirm, “You are not just some checkout machine!” Be the salt of your home as well by adding some zestful enthusiasm to dull domestic routines or unpleasant activities. At your work, sprinkle a bit of salty vitality around the workplace to enhance the flavor of life in what happens there. Countless occasions exist to season life, but use caution when salting! The medical profession warns that our health can be seriously endangered by the excessive use of salt. That same danger exists in religion. When zealous Christian fundamentalists of every denomination excessively scatter religious salt on everything, religion becomes unpalatable and unacceptable. Too much religion—like too much salt—is hazardous to your soul and to the world. In this hotly debated pre-election season spilling over with political propaganda, it is wise to follow the old Roman advice: “Take what you hear with a grain of salt!” Interestingly, this ageless advice was part of Pompey’s remedy for poison!

How Are You?

Usually every conversation today begins with the greeting, “How are you?” Once a doctor’s question, now it’s an invitation from anyone to pour forth your physical pains and sorrows. Only a few who ask are genuinely interested—as long as your recital of sorrows isn’t too long. For the rest, it is only another way of saying, “Hello.” Sorrow and its comrade death are our twin companions on the journey of life, and they come in sizes ranging from small to xxx-large. Life’s sorrows fill us with sadness and depression while death—be that of your job, a relationship or a life companion—is a burden of sorrow almost too heavy to bear. When I’m on my deathbed I wonder if I will be asked, “How are you?” If so, I hope to reply, “It is unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though in bondage, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death.” So said the Italian Giordano Bruno before being burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition in 1600 for his heretical teachings. To be “happy in sorrow” as was Bruno isn’t heretical, rather it’s heroic, holy, and it is a goal to seek in our personal sufferings. The Russian author Aleksei Peshkov, known as Gorki (“the bitter one”), gives us another radical response to suffering. He wrote of the appalling sufferings of the Russian peasants in the late 1800s prior to the Communist revolution. Gorki reported how from their lives of endless misery and tedious daily grind Russian peasants learned to make of their sorrow “a diversion, an entertainment, playing with it like a child’s toy…a carnival of grief.” We Americans are spared a lot of life’s sorrows experienced by those in poorer undeveloped countries (as well as having access to painkillers). Is this the reason for when it comes our way we find suffering so difficult to endure—or is it our attitude toward sorrow? Can we adopt the challenge to view our personal sufferings like a Russian peasant or that Italian heretic burned at the stake? If so, while suffering intensively for whatever reason on the inside, when someone asked how we were we could say, “Great, life for me today is like a carnival!” They might logically reply, “Well, if it’s a carnival, how do you explain that walker you’re now using?” And we’d respond, “Oh, this thing? It’s my new toy, and I’m having great fun with it!”

The Visionary

Sixty-some years ago I came across a story that tattooed itself upon my memory (unfortunately, without the name of its author): Once a solitary explorer probing a South American jungle came upon a narrow crevice in a mountain and climbed through it into a mist-clouded valley. He was awestruck by the beauty of several waterfalls cascading into the great clouds of vapor, along with a rich profusion of multicolored flowers descending the mountain and gorgeous rainbow-hued birds. Slashing his way with his broad jungle knife through dense emerald vegetation he came to a clearing at the bottom of the valley. Before him was a village of thatched huts. Approaching it he saw a crowd of natives waiting for him, but when he called out a greeting they did not return it. As he came closer, he saw each one had no eyes! Then a man, obviously the village leader, stepped forward. “Welcome stranger. We heard you coming as you slashed your way through the dense jungle.” As the elder nodded his head, two women stepped forward with baskets of fruits and bread. The explorer acknowledged his gratitude replying, “You are so fortunate to live in the most beautiful place in the world. Never before have I ever seen such magnificent splendor as the loveliness of these emerald mountains above your village that are crowned by veils of indigo-tinted mist.” As he spoke the villagers muttered to one another shaking their heads, and he realized that lacking eyes they couldn’t see what he saw. One by one, some of them came to him to touch his face, and gently feeling his eyes they began to mumble apprehensively. For several days the explorer lived there and was treated royally but suspiciously. He continued speaking to them of the beauty of their valley, describing in detail the splendors surrounding them. The sixth day the tribal leader convened a meeting of the village elders in his hut. When it ended, he and the elders, along with a dozen or so men with knives, approached the explorer as he sat in the doorway of his hut. Stepping forward the tribal leader said, “Do not be afraid! We’ve come to heal you of your hallucinations that you’ve shared with us. The elders have decided those two, small malignant knobs on your face are the cause of these delusions. Fear not, their removal will cause only slight pain for we shall give you a painkiller of mashed coco leaves. Then you will be healed of your mad visions.” Instantly the explorer jumped to his feet and ran off into the dense jungle, and as he did he could hear the sounds of his healers chasing him. Coming to a tall vine-covered tree he quickly climbed it, silently clinging to the trunk. Below him he could see his blind pursuers’ arms outstretched searching for him. Hours later as the darkness of night covered the jungle he climbed down the tree and began to hurriedly run away, only to hear behind him the sounds of his persistent pursers. Coming upon a swiftly flowing river, he plunged in and floated downstream until sunrise when he climbed out. Seeing no one and hearing nothing, he rapidly began scaling the mountainside until he found the narrow gap through which he first entered the Valley of the Blind. Climbing through and out of the crevice, he breathed deeply in gratitude for his freedom...and his eyes. This is a story to ponder in light of the ancient wisdom, “Where there is no vision, the people perish!” (Proverbs 29, 18) Yet in reality when people are given a vision, typically it is the visionary who perishes!

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.